If there’s one niggling thing Kirby Smart does that drives me a little crazy, it’s this.
The physicality part remains a work in progress. And that’s the biggest concern for the Bulldogs heading up to Lexington on Saturday.
The Gators exposed Georgia’s weakness in that regard last Saturday. Lest we forget, the Bulldogs failed to get into the end zone on seven plays from inside Florida’s 1-yard line.
You can gripe about Georgia’s play-calling on that possession, but those calls reflected those core principles.
Oh, I don’t think anybody’s gonna forget any time soon, Chip. But that’s not the lesson to be taken from that, unless you’re Todd “That tops the hat for me” Grantham.
I get the whole impose-your-will philosophy that’s Kirby’s working mantra. There’s nothing that says you can’t be physical and smart at the same time, though. (Let’s not forget that Georgia’s offense eventually ground down and wore out Florida’s defense in the fourth quarter, just like the boss man drew it up.)
Sure, you can run into a brick wall six times, but, after a while, wouldn’t it be a whole lot more productive to dodge around that wall? Repeatedly running out of a power set — with a freshman tight end trying to play fullback, to boot — simply allowed Grantham to do what he likes to do best, sell out. What was particularly frustrating in that setting was knowing that Georgia had converted other short yardage situations earlier in the game running plays out of its standard formations.
Sometimes, it doesn’t take rocket science. It just takes a willingness to leave the testosterone in the pre-game locker room and take what the defense gives you. As physically as possible, of course.
Get The Picture 
Zuniga came untouched across the line and tackled the back before getting to the goal line at least three times, maybe four. Untouched. Holyfield would have surely scored on the first play if not for Zuniga getting to him that way. How exactly is (repeatedly) designing a play to not block someone a matter of physicality?
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^^This. It was a blocking scheme problem. Chaney and Pittman should have picked this up and changed the blocking assignments to double team Zuniga—at least put 1hat on him.
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They could have just lined up a TE at the edge and chipped him. Or run right at him. It was absurdly stupid, almost as dumb as the fake FG, and if we’d have lost we’d be screaming bloody murder about it and not managing the clock at the end of the half. And we’d be right.
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I keep agreeing with you. The world has turned upside down.
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It was bizarro world. It was like Zuniga was wearing a cloaking device or something. We just refused to block him and he made play after play. Insane.
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Zuniga vs. the Georgia offensive line
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Many plays leave the backside edge defender unblocked so that you can have a double-team at the point of attack or account for the fact the QB isn’t blocking. If the OL gets some movement, there is not enough time for the edge defender to get there. No offense, but double-teaming the backside edge defender is just dumb as that leaves someone closer to the ball unblocked. That is bad.
A possible remedy is to do like Bobo did in 2011-12 and use a quick toss to the RB instead of the long hand off. The toss is a little quicker and allows the QB to block the backside edge defender. It doesn’t have to be much of a block either to be effective.
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OK man with no name. Don’t double the guy. Just BLOCK him. And you saw 7 times how much having the extra man at the point of attack helped.
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BTW, I am convinced Fromm got in on the second QB sneak–the zebras blew the call. Big surprise.
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Yep, we didn’t need a double team, just chip the guy once. Or run right at him. Or spread out and play action. Or literally anything other than not blocking the guy and watching him consistently tackle the ball carrier from behind.
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If I were the HC i’d play those four or five plays where that happened over and over for the offensive coaching staff. It also happened on other rushing plays and I saw it several times against LSU. If they can’t fix it, we need to find coaches who can.
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Besides which, in Athens they can’t hide the juicing like they can in Tuscaloosa. The reporters and cops won’t play ball.
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Kirbs got Former UGA Police Chief to “retire” so who knows? A) I keed, though that turd is gone. B) I was very ungracious about and uninterested in at some of the tributes and desires to honor the Former UGA Police Chief on campus this past Spring.
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After that failure, I was stunned the Dawgs tried to run it in for two. Not trying for two, but running it in for two. Helllllooo? Sometimes you shouldn’t have amnesia after a play, or four, or five. FL Defense was not going to allow it.
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After the 1st two QB sneaks I was really hoping they would line up in the same formation then audible to a pistol formation to possibly force FU to use a TO. That defensive set they were using was screaming spread them out and force the D to defend the entire width of the field.
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This comment was meant to be added below.
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Hey, at least we ran the first I formation toss sweep OF THE YEAR.
Maybe over the summer we can find a walk on fullback.
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Kirby’s mantra is inconsistent. He wanted to impose his will yet earlier and against LSU on 3rd and short we run jet sweeps that get no gain. Which is it? Impose your will or try to finesse?
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I get the imposing your will thing. I also get the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
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Saw a lot of that in 2016. Lost at 2 or 3 games because of it too.
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Perhaps a little off topic.. well a lot of topic.. but why no time out call near the end of the first half when FU is getting ready to punt? What a difference that extra time would have made at the end of the first half! Physicality.. sure! But not a wise move in my opinion. YMMV however.
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Getting the whole man in the arena etc., and knowing how tough it is to call plays with seconds to spare, however, going back to USC 2016 we have had issues with simple time management at end of halves.
The other team punting on 4th down, less than 90 seconds and 2 or more TOs left, you call one there to save at least 30 seconds, of your 90 left. That’s football 101.
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From what I gathered, they didn’t want to go 3 and out and give the ball back to Florida (he didn’t trust Camarda to flip the field). When they hit a big gain to Nauta, that’s when the strategy fell apart.
In Kirby’s defense, he’s not really familiar with passes to the tight ends, so I can see how he made that decision.
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Yeah, Kirby explained it that way. It was a calculated decision, a very conservative one nonetheless, not to take a TO right then. I can live with that. In rewatching the game, I think a time out should definitely have been taken after Nauta’s third straight catch over the middle. It was a first down at about the 23 with 26 seconds left when the clock stopped for the chains. We got set, but Fromm took a while with the play and snapped it at 18 seconds. That’s 8 extra seconds added to the backend when the clock was at 6 and we kicked the FG. Right there was the actual clock mismanagement. I remember screaming timeout right after the catch. No excuse there.
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Agreed
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Yep, went into half with 2 time outs in our pocket. Bad clock management.
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I didn’t have a problem not using the to. 1. He didn’t want to leave UF time in the case of a 3 and out. 2. As long as they had timeout he had the threat of running the ball on any play of the drive. Had they used the timeout UF would not have had to respect the run until UGA got within field goal range.
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The play fake with a pass to one of those TEs was there that entire series. That we didn’t use it once was borderline criminal.
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Or slipping the FB out. I didn’t get it either. It’s like Mullen and Grantham knew we would be hardheaded and they were right.
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The simple fact that Grantham didn’t offer anything differently from a defensive scheme throughout that series is part of the most fascinating part. Both teams just did the same thing for 7 straight plays it seemed.
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I guess Grantham’s was bigger than Kirby’s on that series.
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posted above but meant for this comment string: After the 1st two QB sneaks I was really hoping they would line up in the same formation then audible to a pistol formation to possibly force FU to use a TO. That defensive set they were using was screaming spread them out and force the D to defend the entire width of the field.
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I’ve harped on this point since Baton Rouge and I know it’s something that you discussed here during Kirby’s first year. It felt like we lost a few games in 2016 because our coaches wanted to prove to the players how they intended to win; with “physicality and toughness.” That’s all well-and-good but 2 years later, aren’t we at the point that we’re trying to win the football game regardless of the method? It feels sometimes like our coaches (Kirby in particular) hope that we can push the square peg through the round hole simply because our hammer is bigger than anyone else’s. Sometimes it would make sense to me just to try putting down the square peg and trying one of the other 5-star round pegs that are standing on the sideline.
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I’m sure I’d feel differently if we had lost, but I’d flip that argument. I’d say in year 1 you win any way you can just to let the team experience winning while you’re installing a more physical, tougher system. I’d say in year 3, you either decide physical and tough is never going to be your thing, or you do exactly what Kirby did and stay stubborn about it and die on that hill. Maybe he thought they needed embarrassing and that was one way to do it rather than calling them out.
As has been stated above, letting 92 come unblocked complicates the whole situation. I’m personally in the score however you can camp, even if it means being smarter rather than tougher than the other guys. But a championship team gets a yard most any time it wants a yard.
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I felt the same way about 2016 but just realised probably half of our roster wasn’t there for it so the “Spiteful, Little Man” that coaches our team might be stuck in some sort of stubborn, vicious cycle in this regard.
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Yeah, but, in the 2020 Georgia Florida game Kirby is going to blow their minds and every play inside the 5 will be a misdirection weak side jet that will make Danielson spooge publicly.
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I couldn’t have been the only one who thought it was idiotic that the last attempt on the goal line we didn’t simply pitch it to let Holyfield or Swift run for the edge. The Gators were absolutely sold out on stopping the inside run. We could have waltzed it in on the outside. Agree that repeating the same mistake and expecting different results is insane.
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We tried that to Swift once and they blew that up, too.
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True, they were better at contain than us.
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Chaney’s play calling inside the 5 and on extra points is always puzzling but the ball was inside the one yd. line. I do think he was hung up on Smart’s physicality thing and proving it to his team and theirs.
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Fromm scores if they decide to sneak it in instead of handing it off. He was avging 6 inches a sneak.
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Fromm tried it and got his eyes gouged.
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That’s why God gave us two.
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Lol, savage.
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Took 81 Dog’s advice and watched the Dan Mullen show. It seemed like half the show was about the goal line stand- too bad for them we still got 3 points and all that effort turned out to be completely meaningless. Is there a real difference between a 19 and 23 point loss?
I’m sure it was a cool moment at the time but we still whipped them pretty good – where was this vaunted D on Swifts last run? I guess its easy and convenient to pretend that didn’t happen.
Maybe they believe its a great sign of whats to come but I highly doubt journeyman Grantham is suddenly going to morph their D into the ’85 Bears.
No one will remember that sequence in 2 years….
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“No one will remember that sequence in 2 years….”
those orange and blue, classless scared coward scumbags that can go to Hell sing “I Won’t Back Down” before the 4th Qtr when their team then literally backs down and gets dominated. That goal line stand is all they will have to remember in this series 2 years from now. It’s their Steve Spurrier Era of the 2010’s!
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^This. We’ll be watching highlights of “The great florida goal line victory” for the next five years on CBS. It doesn’t matter that they fell apart after that and got 5 shades of shit kicked out of them. Fuckin’ Gators, man. They suck.
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Even if you forget about the goal line series.. I was shocked with how little we used play action last week. I don’t believe any of Jake’s big throws were off play action. I thought that we had it set up perfectly after the first drive of the game, but we didn’t really go to that well.
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I have been a broken record on this for 4 years. More tight end from play action and……more play action.
Could not agree with you more, Senator. There were so many options for Kirby and Chaney – naked bootleg, pitch to match our RB speed against their outside speed, the dreaded Tebow jump pass, and of course, the fake 31 dive and pass to the TE after he chips the outside rush. None of which, of course, happened. Kind of an embarrassment and revealing about our mentality. Style points aren’t the success indicator in this case; a TD is. Unless I don’t understand the point of the game.
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A double edge sword for the Gators on their goal line stance. They saved a TD but lost a lot of time off the clock and it ground down their defense.
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Yep, cost them 5:38 and 3 points. But hey! They can hang their hat on it!
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I honestly believe the top CFB head coaches care more about eating clock than anything else. They know they have weapons that can score in less than 1 minute so they think “I’ve got $10mil in the bank, what the eff, let’s have some fun.”
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“There’s nothing that says you can’t be physical and smart at the same time, though. “
Sometimes, your ego says it and takes control. I will say that if they had scored at that point the team would have gotten a major adrenaline boost.
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I think he scored on the second plunge. The refs simply stood there watching.
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I sure would’ve liked to see a student body sweep or a 300 lb lineman running the ball inside…just like the Rolling Stone’s old song,we don’t always get what we want…
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